2011 Paper 2 Section III Module C
Explain how Songs of Innocence and Experience and ONE other related text of your own choosing portray the consequences of moving into the world.
Prescribed text: Songs of Innocence and Experience by William Blake (poetry)
Related text: Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi (graphic novel)
Introduction names the texts, authors and responds directly to the question / The passage of life from childhood to adulthood is never an easy one. As people move into the world and experience life they find that there are consequences. This is clear in the poetry of Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience and in Marjane Satrapi’s graphic novel Persepolis.Topic sentence connects style and purpose in both texts while distinguishing the contexts
The opening point about childlike form is developed further with respect to both texts / Both texts use a simple childlike form to convey serious social and political discrimination. Blake’s poetry was written in the late eighteenth century period of the Industrial Revolution at a time of great poverty when people, especially children, were exploited to keep factories and houses working efficiently. It was a time of strong Christian beliefs but Blake questioned the institution of the church for not caring for the weak, young and poor. Satrapi’s text is set in twentieth century Iran at a time of great political upheaval when one political regime was replaced by another oppressive religious regime. Both writers focus on youth to show the innocence of the times and they use forms that are associated with young people. Blake’s simple rhyming and rhythmic stanzas, which sound like nursery rhymes, belie a harsh reality that is in stark contrast to the form the ideas are presented in. In doing this, Blake is showing the hypocrisy of the world the children move into. Satrapi uses the graphic novel form, relying on black-and-white images to convey her message. Like Blake, Satrapi’s form may be innocent but it suggests more than it appears to on the surface. The black-and-white contrast is a play on the innocence of the white colour and the experience or evil of the black world that she enters.
Close reading of Blake’s poems focusing on the opposition of innocence and experience and the consequences
Lots of examples are given from different parts of the poem to support each point / The title of Blake’s text and the pairing of many of the poems consciously set up innocence and experience as binary opposites, representing childhood and adulthood, respectively. Blake makes clear, however, that it is the way we perceive the world that changes and not the world itself. Even in the state of innocence there are hints of the evil presence of institutions and of negative individuals. The consequence of growing up and achieving a state of experience is that there is a developing awareness of aspects of life that should not be acceptable. The two poems entitled “The Chimney-sweeper” illustrate this idea. The harshness of the chimney-sweeper’s life is obvious even in the Song of Innocence. The child is sold, his friend Tom’s head is shaved, they sleep in soot and death is never far, as indicated by the thousands of sweepers who are metaphorically “lock’d up in coffins of black” and who visit Tom in his dreams. The boys live with the hope of resurrection in death when angels will free them from their coffins if they “do their duty”. This is in sharp contrast to the cynical tone of the sweeper in Songs of Experience. He realises his exploitation is condoned by the church (“God, his priest and king”) and that his life is a misery. The paradox in the metaphor of “heaven of our misery”, specifically refers to the way heaven was misrepresented as a way to control the boys. Experience of the world makes the sweeper bitter but he still does his job.
Connects to previous paragraph with the word like
Details are given as evidence to support the topic sentence that children are controlled
Consequences are considered in the discussion of forewarning / Like Blake, Satrapi realises the ways children are controlled. By opening her autobiography with a chapter called “The Veil” she is signalling that this is a symbol of oppression. Her first image of herself has the accompanying text: “This is me when I was ten years old. This was in 1980”. A mid shot of a girl whose cross face is overwhelmed in a black veil suggests the negative impact of the veil on innocent children. The date alerts the audience to the fact that this is an event based in truth. The next frame “a class photo” shows how each child lost her identity by taking on the veil. In contrast, there is a frame with a black background and white lines of people’s arms held up in anger to show the background history of the violence that led to this event. The final double width frame of the playground shows the confusion of the children in what they say in the speech bubbles. One declares “It’s too hot” while another steals someone’s veil to play skippies, and others innocently play horsies, “execution” and dress up as the “monster of darkness”. These innocent exclamations are a forewarning of the fear that is to be experienced as they move into a world that seeks to silence difference in the name of a religion that also holds political control.
A link between the two texts is made in the topic sentence while comparing the contexts
Evidence can appear in brackets as well as being part of the sentence / Blake’s world, which is so much earlier chronologically than Satrapi’s, is also one of rigid control. His poem “London” in Songs of Experience has a much more ominous tone than the poems in Songs of Innocence. Echoing greens only exist in innocence; cities are places of experience. The consequences of experience are frightening and mark the faces of everyone the poet meets. The repetition of the word “every” emphasises the despair that Blake feels. His sense of sight is overwhelmed as every face has “marks of weakness, marks of woe”. His sense of sound is also accosted as he hears the “cry of Man”, the “Infant’s cry of fear”, the “Chimney-sweeper’s cry”, the “Hapless soldier’s sigh” and “the youthful Harlot’s curse”. Male, female, young and old are feeling pain. Blake implies that institutions such as the church and royalty are complicit in this. He paints a bleak picture of the consequences of experience as being like chains (“manacles”) that people can’t break from. The final stanza is about the terrible consequences of sexual experience, at a time when syphilis was affecting many men who passed it on from prostitutes (“harlots”) to their wives and unborn children.
Return to the related text
with direct link to question in the word “consequences” / Satrapi is shocked by the consequences of growing up in Iran. Her story moves from personal to political messages as she compares the story of her uncle who was locked up for going against the regime to her own adolescent rebellion. Her uncle’s incarceration is indicated by a black background against which he stands white and innocent. The affection for her uncle is shown by their closeness visually. The impact of his death is shown in the following double page, which starts with a newspaper with the headline “Russian spy executed” and a full page image of her as a child floating through the universe as stars and planets go past under the words “and so I was lost, without any bearings… what could be worse than that?” In the image a jagged speech balloon offers an answer: “Marji, run to the basement! We’re being bombed!” Through careful selection of words placed against stark but expressive images we get a strong sense of the control and fear that was experienced by Satrapi in the world that Iran became.
A short effective conclusion that ties all points and texts to the question / Both texts show that experience of the world is not always easy. The consequences can be devastating and in both cases there is a resultant loss of innocence.
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